Trump In Hot Water Over What He Said About 9/11

By: Jim Owen | September 11, 2017

The anniversary of the September 11th attacks will undoubtedly be filled with memorials. For Donald Trump, however, some are remembering more than he might want.

One such memory is that President Trump once boasted that the 9/11 attacks resulted in him having the tallest building in New York City.

On Monday, the anniversary of the tragedy, the president spoke at a memorial ceremony. He oversaw a moment of silence to remember the victims who died 16 years ago when two hijacked airliners crashed into the World Trade Center. Trump’s attitude about the tragedy has not always been so reverent.

Yahoo News, citing a story by The Huffington Post, reported that as the twin towers were collapsing, Trump phoned the hosts of a local television news show. Referring to his nearby building, the real-estate mogul declared: “40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest — and then, when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second-tallest. And now it’s the tallest.” Fact-checkers determined that the claim was not even true.

Another false statement was Trump’s insistence that Muslim-Americans applauded the terrorist attack. “I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down and I watched in Jersey City, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down,” he said at a rally during the 2016 presidential race. “Thousands of people were cheering.” When reporters challenged the claim, the candidate remarked that the supposedly enthusiastic response by Muslims “was well covered at the time.” Trump told ABC News: “There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down.”

While there was no such large gathering of Muslims in New Jersey, police reported that “a number of people … were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river.” Serge Kovaleski of The New York Times, who investigated the matter, concluded: “I certainly do not remember anyone saying that thousands or even hundreds of people were celebrating.”

The reporter’s statement led to one of the most infamous moments of the Trump campaign. During a speech, the candidate mocked Kovaleski by attempting to imitate the reporter’s physical movements that result from a congenital joint condition.

Trump told another whopper in 2011, when he wrote on Twitter: “I predicted the 9/11 attack on America in my book ‘The America We Deserve’ and the collapse of Iraq in ‘Time to Get Tough.’” He again made 9/11 all about himself on the 12th anniversary of the tragedy, when he tweeted: “I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, September 11th.”

Ivanka Trump and her husband, White House adviser Jared Kushner, joined the president at Monday’s event on the South Lawn of the White House. Trump’s itinerary called for him to take part in another memorial ceremony later in the day at the Pentagon, the second target of the 9/11 terrorists.